Tuesday, January 17, 2017

During election season of 2016, the American people witnessed a media spectacle that was both disgraceful and unbelievable. For months on end, we were exposed to the most spectacular demonstration of mudslinging between two wild-card candidates who—from a mainstream perspective—had nothing to offer the masses but negative commentary.

Over time, however, the American people began to see that among the negative comments, there was actual need for investigation into many of the allegations presented. Off stage, it seemed that there was extreme apprehension about how much was being revealed about the Clinton Foundation, and what this organization was doing behind the scenes.

Before going any further, I feel it necessary to make a few things known with regard to my personal perspective. In any investigation, it is my hope that justice is served properly, fairly, and with impartiality. I cannot say that I believe in the concept of presidency or government in the most common way. However, if I did, I would not mind having a female president, given she was a good person and could be trusted to perform her duties honorably. However, in the case of Clinton, this did not seem to be the situation.

I hold no personal contempt for Clinton. However, I do have an issue with authority figures who neglect their duties for personal gain of any kind. In this case, I think it important to visibly and honestly conduct the investigations into the original charges brought against the Clinton Foundation. Only by doing so can any confidence be held in the results of this investigation. Up until this point, no thorough investigation has been conducted.

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Near the end of 2016, the world of corporate media became center stage for a popularity contest to remember. While these media companies were busy relishing in all of the Trump gossip along with his occasional foot-in-mouth statements, these companies seemed to blindly ignore the possibility of guilt on the parts of the DNC and the Clinton Foundation. There appeared to be a steady investigation going on behind the scenes with regard to these allegations. However, the investigations were halted or hampered by what seemed to be negligence or deliberate ignorance of key evidence.

Despite the attempts at dismissing these investigations, the NYPD and the FBI have taken it upon themselves to launch an alternative probe on a number of other charges not covered by the first. Upon hearing these allegations, it can be easy for some to make the assumption that these investigations only represent a personal attack against Hillary Clinton and hold no significance other than sexism and personal contempt.

After all, this was the common reaction from Clinton to all of the previous charges which were brought to light from the first pseudo-investigation during election season. However, as we may remember there was no actual attempt at proving the innocence of Clinton or any implicated parties within the establishment. Instead we saw extensive efforts by those implicated to demonize and dismiss the charges themselves. In short, we could say that instead of any attempt at exonerating the parties in question, both the victim card and the gender card were played in order to escape accountability.

Money launderers who bragged on a secret federal wire tap that they could employ Clinton Foundation connections to funnel and cleanse millions in illicit cash have sparked a newly-minted FBI investigation into the embattled charity run by Hillary Clinton and her family, federal law enforcement officials confirm.

The money laundering allegations being probed by the FBI have been buoyed by recent revelations and evidence discovered by the NYPD from a laptop confiscated from Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Manhattan residence. According to NYPD, several of the emails recovered on the hard drive disclosed sensitive financial details of the Clintons and their charity. That evidence is now in the hands of the FBI too, whose New York field office has opened a parallel Clinton Foundation investigation.

Federal law enforcement sources said the Los Angeles-based money launderers, who are part of a separate federal investigation, discussed previously using Clinton Foundation personnel to domesticate foreign funds that could not be legally brought into the United States through traditional bank wires and deposits.

NYPD sources said Weiner’s email treasure trove contained correspondences regarding a company linked to President Bill Clinton and at least one offshore company, a South American affiliate of the Clinton Foundation. The emails also contained offshore financial correspondences, the source said.

Federal agents said one U.S.-based company is owned by Bill Clinton and according to linked banking intelligence discovered in emails, that entity disbursed millions of dollars via wire transfers through global banks to additional accounts controlled by the Clinton family and its charity. NYPD intelligence sources versed in anti-money laundering, said the emails and other items obtained from Weiner’s laptop paint a portrait of a complex corporate umbrella strategically formulated to seemingly operate and avoid law-enforcement detection.

“There’s sophistication in how this works and distributes cash to other accounts,” a federal intelligence source said. “Do we think this involves gun-running or drug-dealing criminals? Not intentionally, but the infrastructure is set up almost identically. Proceeds and income are being hidden the same way.”

Has the Clinton Foundation and/or affiliates underwritten or profited from terror groups? It is distinctly possible it has conducted business with terror-backed financial concerns, federal agents said based on a cache of suspicious financial activity reports filed by institutions with the U.S. Treasury which flagged transactions with known terror-linked cartels, including Islamic factions.

While the sophistication of the financial structuring and money movement may seem familiar to law enforcement, this case is anything but a normal investigation, notwithstanding its targets include a former U.S. president and secretary of state. Normal joint operating protocols between the FBI and Justice Department have been abandoned. FBI agents in the Los Angeles field office, where the money laundering probe launched have been continuously hassled by Justice Department naysayers who want the investigation spiked. Likewise, Justice Department officials have instructed FBI agents in New York City to stand down and abandon the inquiry. However, the Bureau has refused to buckle, especially after receiving corroborating evidence from the NYPD, FBI officials said.

Is the Clinton Foundation federal probe the work of FBI agents gone rogue? No. The FBI agents, with approval from headquarters in Washington D.C., have been sanctioned to continue the investigation, ignoring directives from Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her underlings, including Leslie Caldwell, Lynch’s point running the Justice Department’s criminal division.

Neither Lynch nor Caldwell were available for comment.

The FBI’s probe of the Clinton Foundation is actually a compartmentalized investigation. Field offices in Los Angeles and New York are spearheading the case but other offices are involved and contributing, sources said.

According to federal sources, transactions linked to Clinton corporate holdings have raised several regulatory eyebrows even beyond of the Justice Department, specifically in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury that reports to the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. FinCEN’s mission is to combat and pinpoint money laundering for personal profit or underwriting terrorism through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities, namely banks and investment houses.

According to federal sources, FinCEN is warehousing numerous Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) forwarded to Treasury from financial institutions for transactions from Clinton-owned entities, both in the United States and globally, all triggered by anti-money laundering safeguards. These reports are confidential but federal agents are using these filings as key pieces to the Clinton Foundation financial puzzle.

According to details gleaned from FinCEN, federal agents acknowledge the Clinton Foundation operates a menagerie of subsidiaries and corporate structures beyond the parent charity. According to law enforcement sources, the FinCEN revelations coupled with the emails recovered by the NYPD detail a complex myriad of shell corporations linked to the Clintons and their charity. FBI sources describe these financial entanglements as vast and global. And many defy normal operating procedures of legitimate charities, officials said.

Has the Clinton Foundation underwritten or profited from linked terror groups per the intelligence warehoused in FinCEN’s vast Treasury database? It is distinctly possible the Clinton Foundation has conducted business — knowingly or not — with terror-backed financial concerns or groups, federal agents said, especially because these are the exact suspicious transactions the U.S. Treasury mandates compliance and security officials in U.S. financial institutions to report to FinCEN under threat of hefty fines and imprisonment.

1 comment:

Regulatory agencies across the globe have been increasingly monitoring financial institutions to implement and continuously enhance their systems and processes to be AML compliant. Money laundering has become one worst crime and to overcome these there are lots of organisations who are working 24x7 with AML testing to secure their assets. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) ranks as one of the top priorities of banks worldwide.